Early Memories.

I said before that I'm an army brat. I remember what happened when by which house I lived in. I don't remember my first two houses. I remember the third.

It was a big house - there were a lot of us, I'm the youngest of a whole brood. I don't remember much from that house. I remember good things. I remember fish my big brothers had caught swimming in my wading pool. I remember building tents with my siblings. I remember sleeping bags draped on the backs of chairs to make a tent. I remember building with legos. We had our own special games. We'd build cars and see whose car survived a head-on collision best. We used to build "marble machines."

We used to lock each other in small places. Once I got locked in a small wooden box. I went there myself, and the latch closed by accident. It wasn't anyone's fault. I soiled myself in there. I slept there. I don't know how long I waited. Big Sister said that when she pulled me out, I was covered in sweat. I was probably four.

One time, my parents went on vacation. They left a colleague of my mom's to watch us. He came with his wife and daughter. His daughter was my age. They put us in the bath together, and my mom's co-worker washed us both with soap-on-a-rope. He didn't do anything wrong, but it still plays at my mind.

My dad used to go to the bathroom without closing the door. I remember wishing I could pee standing up.

My dad used to beat up brother #2 a lot. He'd use his fists and his feet. I don't remember him using a belt or shoes. I think he stopped doing that earlier than I can remember. I know that I feared belts, and I know that there was something about shoes. It plays at the edges of my memory, but it's not something I saw. My mother would cry, whimper "no honey no." and he would take it out on brother #2. It was almost always him. He was a tough kid. He probably had ADHD, but they never diagnosed it.

There was a family that we were friends with. I called the woman Nanny. Once, she was putting me to bed, and I did something she didn't like. She spanked me, but she missed my rear. She spanked straight down the middle. I still don't like her because of it. We're still in touch.

I used to go to a daycare center. I once cut another kid's drawing. There was grass and I wanted to make it more real, so I took scissors and I cut little lines parallel to each other to make blades of grass. Later, I saw that the kid was upset, but I kept silent.

Once I was running when I wasn't supposed to be running. They put me in a crib in the baby area, and one of the workers said something nice to me, and I was so embarrassed that I told her not to talk to me.

Once I screamed and they put me in the corner.

Once I went over to another girl's house and she had a Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine. I was disappointed at how much work went into one tiny snowcone.

I told someone to "Buzz Off" and someone told me that it meant to die.

Twice, people I didn't know gave me stuffed toy animals. I named them after characters from the movie "Annie."

Apparently I was cute. Apparently, that was my task in life. Everyone said that Tabitha gets whatever she wants. Everyone thought I had it easy. I did have it easy. I had a happy life. Look at everything here, and you see a normal, happy childhood.

Things didn't get much more complicated until later, I guess.